Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Given all that we know about the unborn human being, it is clear to me that force of will, rather than genuine ignorance, now seems to be the driving force behind abortion. Our society simply wants abortion to stay legal regardless of the facts. It is not that we don't know the truth; rather, that we don't want to be reminded. It's a strange madness, with teams of doctors struggling to keep premature infants alive in hospitals where just a floor away, babies are being killed and discarded. - Are We Sleepwalking Through the Great Infanticide, by Lea Singh

Gardisil offers short-term protection against 2% of more than 100 cancer strains. It is hardly worth the risk. It is truly frightening that doctors, when asked to speak about this, declined. If you have a daughter and are considering having this vaccine, please re-consider. Is it worth the risk?

The Pope has to choose his words carefully, in order not to cause an uproar amongst clergy and laity. But there is no mistaking that he is clearly warning the American bishops whom he is addressing of the battle they are facing in the United States.

“The seriousness of the challenges which the Church in America, under your leadership, is called to confront in the near future cannot be underestimated,” he said. “The obstacles to Christian faith and practice raised by a secularized culture also affect the lives of believers. Immersed in this culture, believers are daily beset by the objections, the troubling questions and the cynicism of a society which seems to have lost its roots, by a world in which the love of God has grown cold in so many hearts.”

Cardinal Raymond Burke, a short while ago, spoke of his concern that Catholics would be persecuted for their faith in the United States. I am sure he is referring to the proposed legislation that will prevent Catholics in certain professions from acting according to their conscience.
These would be primarily health workers, who are now being compelled to assist in abortions and will also be made to assist in euthanasia which is gaining ground across all of North America.

Can there be any doubt in Catholics' minds that they simply cannot vote for President Obama a second time? It baffles me how people cannot see that Obama is undermining the Judaeo-Christian heritage of the American nation with almost every piece of legislation he signs. Forty years ago, the Democratic Party was seen as the party of social justice, as the party that fought for the "little guy", but that is long gone. It is now the party of the liberal left, whose agenda is to de-construct the social structure of Christian society.

We’ve been hearing a lot lately about young men who fail to grow up and become good family men, but video games are not the culprit — women are. Men tend to follow women’s lead — and it is women, not men, who fight Mother Nature. It is women who’ve changed the roles, rules, and expectations of marriage. It is women who embrace no-fault divorce laws that allow them to check out the moment they’re dissatisfied. Indeed, feminists assure women they can’t possibly be happily married until men change who they are or adapt their nature to accommodate the needs of women.

An article that will make some women angry. But I have often thought, in the abortion issue, precisely that "it is women, not men, who fight Mother Nature".

In claiming abortion as a right to make women equal with men, aren't they saying that Nature has made them the victims of perpetuating the species? Perhaps abortion proponents are really another example of people claiming that they are victims. Hmmm, hadn't thought of it that way before.

Monday, November 28, 2011

Across the Catholic world, the buzz word is "evangelism". What is being proposed in dioceses in North America is a new way of communicating the Gospel, in the hope of bringing back Catholics who have lapsed and of attracting new converts to the faith.

The emphasis is on education and explanation of the Church's teachings so that the Catholic population will be rejuvenated in their faith and "engaged" with their local church.

In a recent meeting with someone who works in the Catholic archdiocesan centre here, we were discussing how to bring to the fore "life issues"; for the most part, we were discussing abortion. I was seeking this person's insights as to why so few youth here are interested in the right to life of the unborn. The fellow I was talking with said, quite rightly, that we are dealing with a generation of "unchurched" people. In other words, they have not been taught the basics of the faith, unlike my generation who got a great education pre-Vatican II.

This man said that we need to "evangelize" Catholics with the Gospel before we can begin to talk about the hot-button issues of abortion, homosexuality, and contraception, another teaching of the Church that is sidelined for the most part.

What he said sounded good and I could see his point. But I was left feeling as if we hadn't really met any consensus on the matter and that things would continue as they always have, with no real effort being made to bring the life issues into the light.

The talk by Georges Buscemi, at our recent 40 Days for Life banquet, firmed up some of what I was feeling but hadn't formulated. Georges spoke of the need to bring people to conversion, that is the point of evangelisation. And no one is going to feel the need to convert unless they realise they need to be redeemed, and they will not need redeeming unless they first recognize that they are sinners. If one just wants to feel good and do better in one's life, he or she can take an exercise class on Sunday morning or attend any number of lectures on development of the human person for the better. Going to church is different: it is about salvation and our need for it. And we should never sell that short.

The daily readings of the past week in Oswald Chamber's devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, speak of just this: the necessity of putting the Cross first. All preaching must bring people to the Cross; anything other than that is not preaching the Gospel. As St. Paul says:

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 1 Corinthians 2:2

And this thought was confirmed once again by an article in First Things by George Weigel:

The new approach must begin with the affirmation that life is fundamental. In the 1995 encyclical Evangelium Vitae, John Paul II analyzed the effects of legalized abortion and euthanasia on democracies, teaching in perhaps the strongest language of his papal magisterium that democracies that erect clear moral wrongs into "rights" risk becoming "tyrant states"...

Today, therefore, there should be no question that the life issues are not only genuine social-justice issues; they are the priority social-justice issues. The defense of life expresses both the evangelical bedrock of the Chruch's social doctrine and engages the most fundamental issue being contested in the Western world today, the dignity of the human person. - Evangelical Reform of Catholic Advocacy, by George Weigel, First Things Dec. 2011

If the new evangelism is proposed as fulfilling Christ's command in the Great Commission ("go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” - Matthew 28: 19-20), then the command to make disciples is also the command to instruct as Christ did.

A pastor of a reformed Presbyterian Church told me that he had several ex-Catholics in his congregation, one of whom was a woman who had had two abortions in her young adult life. She said she had never once heard anything preached against abortion in the Catholic Church. She was swept along by the prevailing cultural belief that abortion was the best solution to her problem, and did not consider that it might actually be breaking the Commandments. Such an example shows quite clearly that teaching about sexual morality and teaching that abortion is a sin is a necessary part of evangelizing Christians. Without clear teaching of the Commandments, how can anyone come to understand the kind of life that Christ calls us to live? This kind of teaching should come right at the beginning of evangelization, not tacked on once people have been "gently brought" into the fold. And then you hit them with the hard stuff.

It is precisely the hard stuff that brings us to the foot of the Cross. So rather than leave it until later on, when people have had a sugar-coated Gospel fed to them, our pastors need to deliver the Good News in its entirety right from the start.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

You won't find this story covered by the mainstream media. No tv coverage, no newspaper coverage, you have to get Sun News Media to hear these stories. The question is why? Are western journalists under some kind of restriction to cover a story about Islamic violence against women? And why do feminists say nothing in defense of these women?

Michael Coren speaks with blogger, Pam Geller, on the case of an Afghan woman who has to choose between marrying her rapist or going to prison for 12 years. 75% of women in Afghanistan jails are there because they were the victims of sexual crimes.

On the same show, Michael spoke with Joy Smith, MP for a riding in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Smith is putting through Parliament a private member's bill C-310, a bill which would make it possible to prosecute Canadians at home for trafficking in persons outside the country. Smith is raising awareness of the horrific nature and extent of human trafficking both outside and within our borders. Girls and boys as young as four are being used in the sex trade by people posing as friendly tourists from Canada and other western countries. Smith is a brave woman dedicated to battling this war on children.

Now, would you find these two women interviewed on CBC or CTV? I dont' think so. So this is a shameless plug for Sun News Media. Since it is no longer available live online, I would encourage you to sign up and get it from your cable company. If you want to hear some real news, that is.

"Publication in a leading psychiatry journal did not prevent a barrage of criticism for the author of a study showing the mental health risks of abortion."

Priscilla Coleman: This review offers the largest estimate of mental health risks associated with abortion available in the world literature. The results revealed moderate to high increased risk of mental health problems after abortion. Consistent with evidence-based medicine, this information should be used by health care professionals.

Q. The study attracted a lot of criticism -- from the American Psychological Association among others -- and you were accused of everything from professional incompetence (virtually) to personal bias. Were you surprised at this barrage?

A. No not at all. It is much easier for them to attack me than to accept the reality of negative mental health consequences of abortion, a reality that goes against the “civil right” the APA has been advocating for over the last four decades. They are extremely biased on this issue and it wouldn’t be realistic for me to expect to be easily recognized by the APA or similarly minded groups as an objective well-trained scientist.

Q. How important is it for women that a truly scientific approach should prevail?

A. Extremely important. This is a very common medical procedure and at least 20 per cent of women who undergo an abortion are at risk for serious psychological problems. They have a right to know if they are in a high risk group and what the real risks are afterwards, just as with any medical procedure.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Nancy Pelosi, who claims to be a "devout Catholic", is accusing Catholics of having "a conscience thing" when it comes to abortion.

“For a moment, I want to get back to what was asked about the issue on the floor today that Mr. Hoyer address,” Pelosi said. “He made a point and I want to emphasize it. Under this bill, when the Republicans vote for this bill today, they will be voting to say that women can die on the floor and health care providers do not have to intervene if this bill is passed. It’s just appalling.” - LifeNews

Pelosi must be a couple of bricks short of a load. When does refusing to perform an abortion on a woman put that woman at risk of dying? The actual number of women who die from being pregnant is an extremely small percentage of those who are pregnant. In fact, Dr. Everett Koop, surgeon- general under Ronald Reagan, said that he did not know of one single case where a woman would actually die from being pregnant. That is one of the wonderful accomplishments of modern medicine - reducing, if not, eliminating the risk of death from childbirth.

Pelosi's statement reads like one that would defend legal abortion against illegal abortion. But that is not what she is arguing; rather she is arguing against Catholics being able to follow their conscience in the workplace.

Given Pelosi's record on abortion, it would seem that, rather than Catholics having "a conscience thing", Pelosi has "an abortion thing".

When I hear someone as well educated as this speak of the wonder of creation, I wonder why people like Christopher Hitchens cling to their atheism with such tenacity. I would be so sad to spend my entire life living the denial of what I am going to see the minute I die.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

A short video made by a student in a film class in England. She had found this letter posted on the internet, written by an anonymous woman to the baby she aborted ten years ago. Students in the class, both pro-life and pro-choice, reacted positively to the film. The student who made the film prays for the woman who wrote the letter and hopes that, by making this film, just one life can be spared from abortion. I hope so too.

Monday, November 21, 2011

When I first became really interested in pro-life issues (about 7 years ago), I began reading in earnest many books on the pro-life movement. I couldn't read enough by pro-life apologists and by people who wrote historical pieces about abortion and pro-life in North America.

I have just finished reading The Death Peddlers, War on the Unborn By Father Paul Marx, a Bazilian priest who started the largest pro-life organization in the world, Human Life International. Father Marx had a PhD in sociology and, by some strange turn of events, he received an invitation to attend a pro-abortion forum held in California in 1970. The forum brought together pro-abortion people from all fields, doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, nurses, even clerics. One of the main themes of the forum was the expected overturn of abortion laws in all states, with many presenters stating that they felt sure this would happen within the next five to ten years. Well, it happened a lot quicker than that and Roe v Wade opened wide the floodgates of abortion in 1973.

Father Marx attended the forum incognito and was taken to be a pro-abort, a perception he did nothing to alter. From this vantage point, he was able to record the entire forum and he then wrote the book from those recordings. Much of the book is just a factual presentation of what was stated by each speaker. Occasionally Marx will insert a comment of his own, but he leaves the majority of his evaluation to the final chapter.

What comes as new to me is the revelation of just how the sexual revolution came crashing into society at that time. I know that the advent of the birth control pill was the final gate-crasher in removing sexual inhibitions, but something must have preceded that. The ground was prepared long before the pill by people and forces that wanted to see traditional morals destroyed. Was it a few people, such as Margaret Sanger in advocating birth control in the 30's? Was it clergy in the churches who began to deconstruct the family and abandoned their condemnation of birth control at the Lambeth conference of 1930? It would be interesting to see all these people and institutions in a chart to see how they were all moving towards the same end, independent of one another. Or perhaps they weren't independent? I think another history book needs to be written, one that follows this decline in sexual morality in the western world.

Back to the book, The Death Peddlers.

What strikes me is the magnitude of the change that took place at this time. And also the speed at which it took place. Doctors who presented at the forum were already doing many abortions and it seems to me that they were doing these because they didn't know what else to do in the face of the numbers of pregnant girls who were coming to them. And then the forum becomes a way of rationalizing what they had already consented to do.

Dr. Joseph Fletcher, a professor of medical ethics and author of the book Situation Ethics noted

... that California's medical profession had been "overwhelmed" by the sheer numbers of women coming for abortions, he said many still carried on the "kitchen and barroom debates" about whether it was ever right to kill unborn babies.

He then proceeded to dismiss the idea of "unborn babies" completely. Arguing that women who had miscarriages didn't have birth certificates for those babies, and that pregnant women who traveled didn't have to have two passports, he claimed that the unborn was not a person at all. Rather ridiculous to argue that, because the culture doesn't recognize something as true, therefore it must follow that it isn't true. Many of the presenters would have been defeated in a logical debate.

He stated that the question of when does life begin had never received a satisfactory answer and therefore he said the question was a religious question, completely dismissing any scientific evidence for the humanity of the unborn. He even quipped that "Plato answered by saying that it is at birth and respiration. According to Aristotle, forty days after conception for a man, eighty days for a woman", a remark that caused laughter.

As Marx remarks:

He had stooped to the rhetorical trick of avoiding the data of embryology and fetology by eliciting laughter at an outmoded and false remark directed at an audience's existing mind-set. Thus had Alan Guttmacher ...blurred the all-important distinction between the expendable ordinariness of the separate body-cells of ovum and sperm and the self-directing uniqueness of the fertilized ovum by remarking ... that if we were going to worry that the fertilized ovum was human and more than a glob of protoplasm then we should indeed be busy catching each woman's monthly ovum and each man's daily millions of sperm. That remark had also been attended by laughter, getting Guttmacher past the pertinent scientific facts.

I have noticed pro-choice supporters still do this, even forty years later and with even more medical evidence before them. One young man, during the 40 Days vigil, even stated that very remark that we should be concerned about all the wasted sperm. Using humour to make light of scientific knowledge illustrates more than ignorance; it indicates a willingness to reduce an important issue such as the right to life of the unborn to a barroom (in this case, sidewalk) joke.

While reading this book, I was very aware of when it was written - 1970. And it was written in the state where the sexual revolution was probably the most active. It reminded me of the very first book I read when I became interested in the pro-life movement, Anti-Abortionist at Large by Raymond Dennehy. Dennehy was a professor of philosophy at the University of San Francisco and he spent four decades, beginning in the late 60's, debating the abortion issue on campuses. At one such debate, he was interrupted by a young college freshman who shouted "so what, we have all had abortions".

Now, I realise just how true that girl's comment was. According to Marx's account, the number of abortions in California were in the thousands. Some hospitals even referred to the phenomena as "suction weekends" because so many college girls came in for abortions. What really saddens me is that this was my generation, I was at university in 1970, and these girls would now be women in their early to late 60's. To realise that that many women of my generation had an abortion, and probably more than one, is staggering. How many wounded women are walking around with this shoved down into their memories?

Another rather startling fact is that Planned Parenthood was not a promoter of abortions. It wasn't until 1963 that Planned Parenthood accepted abortion as moral (prior to that their mandate actually stated "an abortion takes the life of a baby after it has started"). And the journal of California Medicine, in 1970, admitted "the scientific fact, which everyone really knows, that human life begins at conception and is continuous whether intra- or extra-uterine until death."

What comes clear to me, by reading this book after so many others, is the acceptance of abortion simply because of the numbers being done, and the eroding of prior statements against abortion - statements from all sorts of people and organizations, from Planned Parenthood to the medical profession to the Christian Church. The de-structuring of traditional sexual morals gained momentum, broke through all sorts of barriers in the 70's, and continues unabated into the twenty-first millenium. Anyone with a modicum of common sense can see the results: divorce rates doubled, the existence of single parent families increased many fold, the troubling rise of violence and crime amongst the young, the sexualization of the young. Just last week, a reporter on SunNewsMedia asked why we are more concerned about suicide amongst teens when we should be paying attention to the suicide rate of middle-aged men which is the highest of any age group. These things cannot be unrelated to the decline of Judaeo-Christian morality in our society.

The Death Peddlers is a sobering book. Even though it was written forty years ago, it is still timely. Marx's statements on the crux of the pro-life position are still bang-on (abortion advocates continue to evade the heart of the issue, which is the person in the womb). There is a section in the book that succinctly outlines the approach of Stephanie Gray who is now considered Canada's leading pro-life apologist and debater. The truth about the abortion issue hasn't changed very much; pro-aborts continue to state:

The question is not whether termination of pregnancy is justifiable but whether compulsory motherhood is justifiable. - Dr. Fletcher

This issue isn't going away anytime soon. In fact, it can never go away until it is resolved on the side of truth. And that is the side that acknowledges the child in the womb is a human being with rights just like those of us already born. Those rights are greater than the right of a woman not to be pregnant.

One thing is certain: we must continue to fight. With the advent of the abortion pill, formulated to kill an existing though unidentified early embryo, abortion will replace contraception as the chief method of birth control unless our nation rediscovers its disappearing values. It is sobering to envisage the dehumanizing effect on a society which has decided to condone not only the routine performance of the sexual act, whose power and mystery borrow from the power and mystery of life itself, but also the routine extermination of its young.

Friday, November 18, 2011

Not too much posting going on here. This is because of a case of bronchitis that has been plaguing me for three weeks now. The doctor said it is viral so advised against filling the prescription she gave me, unless I was feeling worse. Last night I asked the pharmacist for her advice, and she said while bronchitis is usually 80% viral and thus won't be cleared up with antibiotics, what I have now is a sinus infection that will get better with the pills. We shall see, I certainly hope so.

The tiredness that comes with respiratory infections drags on and on. I don't even have the energy to read for more than half an hour. Which means The Death Peddlers is taking forever to get through while The Ascent of Feminism by Melanie Phillips waits in the wings. My husband is a much faster reader than I and he said this book is very informative and much of the suffragette movement reminds him of the pro-life movement of today. That piqued my interest in a book that doesn't look particularly riveting.

For those who like to read political blogs, Melanie Phillips should be required reading. As a non-religious Jewish woman living in England, Melanie's insights on the Middle East are a must to balance western journalism. My own preferences are for her articles on modernism, health care, "fatherlessness" and its effects upon our western societies. Today her article on the proposed legalization of drugs is worth a read as this type of argument keeps cropping up as the "occupying" generation pushes for more entitlements, including those that eventually destroy them.

My husband and I got very accustomed to watching Sun News Media in the evening, available free on the internet. However, at the end of October that arrangement ended and now Sun News is only available by cable or satellite. We caved; we who received no television channels since early September when the signals changed, gave in and got cable hooked up yesterday. Amazing the amount of crap that is on television. But we can now watch Michael Coren on a larger screen and catch news throughout the day whenever we like. Wow, the modern world! It goes well with my revived love of knitting.

In pro-life news in Canada, two items caught my attention this week. One is a protest in Charlottetown, PEI tomorrow by pro-aborts who want the province to re-open an abortion facility in PEI. This is the only province in Canada that doesn't have any abortion services and women must travel to Halifax which is the closest provider. Peter Ryan of NB Right to Life was calling for anyone who could make the trip to go and give support to the counter-protesters who do not want abortions brought back to this little province.
And the other news is a youth pro-life forum in Toronto sponsored by Gethsemane Ministries and Campaign Life Coalition. This is a one day event to be held at Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus Christ parish hall in west Toronto. The speakers that caught my attention were Stephanie Gray, now considered the best pro-life apologist and debater in Canada (I fully agree) and Father Alphonse de Valk. There are other presenters but those are the two that I would most wish to hear speak.
I think these short one-day forums is a great way to bring the pro-life message to communities. Organizing a weekend conference is onerous and costly; but one-day events are much simpler to put together, much less costly and can be offered to the public at a low cost. This one is being offered for $30 for the day, $20 for students. I hope that Nova Scotia has one of these in the not-too-distant future.
Futher details can be found here LifeSiteNews - Pro-Life Forum in Toronto

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

I have always loved this song, but sadly the lyrics seem to indicate the sexual twistedness that pervades Leonard Cohen's music. So I was thrilled to hear this version, and to know that Kelley got the rights to record her own version of this great song.

Last night, there was a live conference streamed from 40 Days for Life and 9000 people listened to this, causing the server to freeze up. However, things got going and the live webcast went ahead. I listened to a little last night, but it comes on late here so I listened to the recording this morning.

Carmen Pate was the host. Carmen is a post-abortive woman, she is now the executive producer of radio programming for Truth in Action Ministries. Carmen opened the webcast with the statement that she sees more hope today than she has ever seen in her 25 years of pro-life work. She sees God's hand at work in 40 Days for Life, which is bringing churches together in prayer for an end to abortion. The movement is changing hearts and minds in a way that nothing has done before. As Carmen says "wouldn't you want to be a part of this?"

301 cities took part, 131,000 people took part, over 4000 churches were involved, and best of all - 732 confirmed saves - which means that babies scheduled to be aborted on September 28 when the vigil began are now growing within their mothers' wombs and will be born later this year. This brings the total number of babies now living to 5,045 because of the efforts of 40 Days for Life since 2007.

One of the most dramatic results of the 40 Days vigils is the turnaround of abortion clinic workers. Last year, everyone was shocked to find the manager of the Bryan/College Station clinic came out and joined the prayer line. Her story is now available in the book Unplanned. And at the beginning of this year, another woman in Texas left Planned Parenthood where she was the manager and her testimony can be heard on the home page of 40 Days for Life.

And last night, another breaking story. The manager of the Planned Parenthood clinic, Sue Fayer, in Storm Lake, Iowa, told her story of how she went to work at PP because she was pro-life. Because she thought abortion was wrong, in fact she says it is murder, she worked hard to provide family planning counselling to women so that they would not have to resort to abortion. She worked there for seventeen years; her clinic did not do any abortions. However, in 2008, all the managers of Planned Parenthood clinics in Iowa were told they would be taking part in telemed abortions. This online abortion service will save PP much money, as it only requires one doctor in one location who will look at the ultrasounds of women, and if the woman is less than 63 days pregnant, the doctor will push a button which makes a drawer open in the clinic where the woman is. Then the woman will take the pills that she is instructed to while at the clinic, then she will go home, take the rest of the pills as instructed, and deliver a dead baby within a few days.

Abby Johnson describes this method in her book Unplanned, since she herself had a medical abortion of this kind. They are extremely dangerous as the woman is alone, without any medical help closeby, and she basically bleeds until her uterus is empty. I have had three miscarriages and I know that the bleeding is incredible, much more than at birth. With my third miscarriage, I lost so much blood that I went into shock. Fortunately, I was in the hospital where medical staff gathered quickly to assist me. I was immediately given two transfusions of blood and was watched carefully for 12 hours to make sure that I did not relapse. When I went into shock, the nurse could obtain no pulse and no blood pressure. Don't tell me that isn't dangerous. And there is no way I would want to go through that alone.

Sue was fired when she expressed her disagreement with this new procedure; that was in 2008. Since that time, several things have coalesced in her life to the place where she felt called to lead the 40 Days vigil outside the very place where she worked. What Sue revealed was that Iowa is the first state where these telemed abortions are to be done, as a test state, and the agenda of Planned Parenthood is to make these abortions available all over the country. Bottom line: these abortions cost the same as a surgical abortion, but with much less work, less staff involved, so Planned Parenthood stands to make a huge profit from these type of abortions.

So 40 Days for Life has brought out into the light what is going on in the darkness in these abortion clinics run by Planned Parenthood. Far from being concerned with the health of women, these clinics are in the business of making money from intercepting the natural process of pregnancy, and bringing about the death of the innocent unborn child.

Here, in Halifax, the woman who coordinates Project Rachel which is a post-abortion healing ministry, has been praying for the prayer arm of the pro-life movement to come about. She has told me several times that she is so happy to see 40 Days for Life come to our city. Without prayer, we will go astray. And with prayer, even if we do nothing else, God will begin to move others who will become active in the pro-life movement. I don't think it is a coincidence that the issue of abortion is getting more discussed here in politically-correct Canada than in previous years; some MPs are becoming vocal in Parliament on the issue of abortion. Even though our prime minister Steven Harper has said he will not re-open this issue, it may get opened for him, whether he likes it or not. There is something going on like an under-current and it is going to surface. It simply cannot be kept down. I believe that it is the steady faithful prayers of all those involved in 40 Days for Life that is bringing about this change.

Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God. I Corinthians 4:5

Monday, November 14, 2011

Of interest are those pro-choicers who were invited to debate Stephanie but declined or did not bother to respond. View list here at www.prowomanprolife.org. Why the reticence? Lazy, as Andrea Mrozek suggests, or not feeling up to Ms. Gray's debating style?

Stephanie Gray of the Canadian Centre for BioEthical Reform debates Jovan Morales of the Atheist Community of University of Ottawa

The usual audience shouts that display complete ignorance and rudeness on the part of some male students.

Stephanie, as usual, displays consistent logic while Jovan, while doing a fairly good job, falls down in the logic area. His position is logically flawed and he continues to resort to the statement that a woman has the right to get rid of something growing within her body, claiming that this growing being is not a "person". Several times, he refers to the Canadian law which states that the unborn are not persons, but that is precisely what pro-lifers are questioning: the morality of said law.

As anyone knows who has read history, there have been many instances of laws that have been immoral. e.g. Germany where it was perfectly legal to imprison and kill Jews, the US and Britain where it was perfectly legal to hold black people as slaves. As Stephanie says, personhood is a philosophical definition and is used arbitrarily. The conferring of personhood says more about us as a society than it does about the individual on whom we are conferring that personhood.

Friday, November 11, 2011

If polling is any indication, the issue of abortion in Canada is certainly not over and done with. In a September National Omnibus poll by Environics, the findings put the abortion issue squarely on the map. Seventy-two per cent of a representative sample of 2000 Canadians surveyed support legal protection for unborn babies.

What Canadians actually think about abortion is not represented in our current laws and policies. Clearly, there is no moral consensus on the issue, yet there is a wide-spread ban on discussing it, a kind of moral dictatorship that prohibits even a mention of the word at any level of policy making.

Even the enormous body of published literature showing abortion’s negative impact on women’s health can’t initiate a public discussion. The most recent, published in the British Journal of Psychiatry (September 2011) found that following abortion women experienced an 81% increased risk of mental health problems and a 155% increased risk of suicide. Bear in mind that this study was based on a total of 877,181 participants of whom 163,831 had experienced an abortion and it took into account pre-existing mental health problems.

Clearly the people of Canada favour legislation to restrict abortion, but the dictatorship held by abortion absolutists terrifies most of us into silence, especially our elected representatives. In the pervading absence of discussion, the absence of law remains, and it is women and their unborn children who suffer. - Natalie Hudson Sonnen, Executive Director of Life Canada in the National Post

In January, 1971 a conference was held in Los Angeles at the International Hotel, called Therapeutic Abortion: a Symposium on Implementation.

Father Paul Marx, the head of Human Life International, got an invitation to this symposium; he did not understand how one came across his desk, perhaps because he had a doctorate in sociology. In any event, he attended the symposium without divulging his identity as a Roman Catholic priest heading up the largest pro-life organization in the world.

He recorded the entire conference and then wrote up his observations in a book called The Death Peddlers; War on the Unborn. Although the book was written in 1971, he edited it in 1998 and I found a copy last year and began reading it yesterday.

Some pro-choicers continue to argue that the unborn are not human beings; they are not even babies, they are "zygotes", then "embryos", then "fetuses". I maintain that these are simply terms to define states of development; in no way do they define a change in nature of the unborn.

Evidence of this is clear in the book, when Marx records the statements of a nurse Henry Etta Blackmon in a panel discussion "In-Hospital Care and Post-Hospital Follow-up".

... in the case of abortion by D and C, never even mention "abortion", since D and C's were so common. Be on guard to keep your feelings from coming through. 'If you say, 'Suck out the baby', you may easily generate or increase trauma; say instead, 'Empty the uterus,' or 'We will scrape the lining of the uterus,' but never 'We will scrape away the baby.'

"These may seem very, very insignificant to us, but to the patient it can really imply that you are using a judgment, and quite often we are not aware of what we are saying. We have to be very, very sensitive, and very, very aware of what words we are using to describe the procedures used. Use the word "fetus"; this is a fetus; this is not a "baby". You should be able to describe the fetus if requested to."

She then went on to describe it herself, emphasizing how small it was during the first twelve weeks. It was important to be able to touch the patient, she said. Blackmon cautioned: if the patient might end up in an environment where mothers had delivered and/or in an area where babies were among excited parents, forewarn and prepare your charge, because she might identify "fetus" with "baby." There was nothing like anticipating the worst.

For those who still insist on calling the unborn "fetus" or "products of conception", there really is not much time left before they will have to abandon that line of argument. Science has proven otherwise; it is time they acknowledged the science when they argue for abortion. The terms carry no more weight in evaluating human life than the terms infant, newborn, toddler, pre-pubescent, teenager and adult. All are human beings; all deserve protection of their life.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Monday, November 7, 2011

Yesterday, we concluded the 4th 40 Days for Life vigil in Halifax, NS. Today, the students from the Women's Centre at St. Mary's University have set up, as promised, outside the entrance to the Public Gardens.

First, let's be clear. Abortion has never been declared a "right" in Canada. Making this claim is manipulating words to make people believe what you say. Just as the word "choice" was put forward to advance the legalization of abortion, now the word "right" is put forward to justify that position.

Why do these students feel such a need to do this? After all, abortion is legal in Canada for any reason, at any point in a woman's pregnancy. Are they feeling threatened because a group of Christians prayed publicly for an end to abortion? They have the law on their side; why the need to convince the public of their position?

In the Morgentaler ruling, the court did not declare abortion a constitutional right. Only one of the seven Supreme Court Justices who heard the case, Madam Justice Bertha Wilson, wrote in support of a woman’s right to abortion, and then only in the first trimester of pregnancy. Dissenting Justices McIntyre and La Forest JJ. wrote in their opinion, “Save for the provisions of the Criminal Code permitting abortion where the life or health of the woman is at risk, no right of abortion can be found in Canadian law, custom or tradition and the Charter, including s.7, does not create such a right.” [emphasis added]

Furthermore, they stated that “there has always been a clear recognition of a public interest in the protection of the unborn and there is no evidence or indication of general acceptance of the concept of abortion at will in our society. The interpretive approach to the Charter adopted by this court affords no support for the entrenchment of a constitutional right of abortion.”
- from www.abortionincanada.ca

I suspect that someone is feeling threatened by our public witness to life during the past 40 Days. Someone is feeling the need to tell the public that hey, abortion is my prerogative, don't think otherwise!

Perhaps "the lady doth protest too much".

Why is abortion the second most controversial word in the English language? (the first is "nigger") Why do these feminists not even use the word abortion in their signs? Could it be that the public would find that distasteful? It seems that people are comfortable with saying that women have the right of choice, but they can't bring themselves to say women are perfectly entitled to have abortions, which is essentially what they are saying.

One can hide the ugly reality behind these slogans, but the ugliness remains. And people know it. The reality of abortion is such that people cannot even bear to hear the word.

This is because abortion is the antithesis of normal human sympathies. Women are designed by nature to bond with their offspring; to terminate her child is the most un-womanly thing a woman can do.

Abortion is the big NO. With abortion, a woman puts her life before another's and says that the child's life is not as important as hers. Yes, there are many pressures upon women to abort, and our society certainly does not provide enough support for the women facing difficult pregnancies, but ultimately the woman chooses her lifestyle over the life of her baby. It is not even an equal matching of rights: the woman does not lose her life if she carries the baby, but the baby always loses its life if the mother chooses not to.

If we are speaking of rights, then we should be standing opposite these students with a sign that says "Do I not have a right to live?"

Friday, November 4, 2011

Re: ''Cancer leading cause of death in all provinces," Telegraph Journal Nov. 2/11

When I read the headline, ''Cancer leading cause of death in all provinces," I was reminded of Mark Twain's quip, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." Sometimes statistics need to be taken with a grain or two of salt. Statistics Canada's figures on 2008 causes of death are a case in point.

The leading cause of death in Canada is not cancer (70,588 deaths) or heart disease (50,722 deaths) but induced abortion. In 2008 there were 95,876 abortions recorded, and the stats keepers indicate the real figures are higher due to unreported data from BC clinics.

By any objective standard, each time an abortion occurs a baby dies. Yet Stats Canada fails to recognize abortion as a human death. It thus perpetrates a national lie about the causes of death.

Canadians should not be deluded. Whatever our views on a woman's right to end a pregnancy, none of us should deny that abortion results in someone's death.

Caring and compassionate people mourn the loss of anyone's life. We mourn for those who have died from cancer and heart disease. We need to also mourn the loss of so many, many babies before birth. In 2008, 1096 were New Brunswick kids.

We need to not only mourn, but address the cause of why so many women see an unwanted pregnancy as a disease. Maternity is not a disease. And a child is no mere statistic.

Three of my seven daughters are pregnant at present. Don't tell me I'm not already a grandfather. I know the difference between truth and Stats Can lies.

For the second time in three years, Justin Trudeau was invited to address a group of students in the Peterborough Catholic school board.

Dean Del Mastro, parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, said last month it was “outrageous” that the Catholic school board in his Peterborough riding would give a platform to the Liberal leadership prospect for the second time in three years.

Trudeau reacted with surprise that anyone would question his Catholicity. Although in a CBC interview in 2009, he admitted that his views on gay marriage and abortion were at odds with Catholic teaching.

Once again, we have a politician who claims that he can keep his personal faith and beliefs separate from his public life. That it is perfectly reasonable to be personally against abortion and yet to support a government that makes abortion legal. There is a huge disconnect here in the minds of these politicians, when they think that their personal morals shouldn't influence their public life. Precisely the opposite should be true. We want politicians who will stand for what they believe in, not politicians who will simply be weather-vanes of the prevailing culture.

If the bishops would speak clearly on this issue, such confusion wouldn't exist. But I have only heard Archbishop Prendergast address this issue a few years ago, when he said that he would deny Communion to a politician who publicly supported abortion.

This is a great oppportunity for the Catholic Church to set the record straight. Because it didn't with Pierre Trudeau, Justin's father, and that is the legacy we are living with now.

Wednesday, November 2, 2011

This is a video from the US college pro-life movement. How do we get Canadian students motivated like this? I am puzzled, because here in Halifax, the pro-life club at Dalhousie University has only four members. The one at St. Mary's last year had more students, but I think it may have evaporated with the graduating of those leading it.

What is the malaise in our country that even infects our youth? Is there something intrinsically hostile to freedom of speech in Canada that brings this about? is there an apathy here and for what reason? Is it the lack of outspoken pro-life politicians? I would surely like to know why Canada lags so far behind the United States in pro-life activism.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Pro-life and filling the pews: A few comments about “new evangelization” / going out in the deep (talk about what “new evangelization means) : Some pastors might believe that abortion is the last thing you want to talk about if you want to get people back in the pews. I think the opposite. For the new evangelisation, or whatever you want to call it, people will only be interested in being saved if they realize they need to be saved. But if they don’t know about their sin, why would they need to go to church? Abortion is probably the biggest, most widespread sin today, so putting a spotlight on abortion is an essential component of the new evangelisation. Once they realize what they’ve done, that they have “crucified Christ” in the person of the unborn child (c.f. “‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ Matthew 25:40”) they will seek forgiveness, and they will seek it and truly be forgiven only if they find in those who show them their sin the face of the One who will forgive them. But the face of God only shows through in us if we accept God’s forgiveness. And we can only accept God’s forgiveness if we recognize that we are just as sinful as the pro-choicers.

- Georges Buscemi, speaking to the closing banquet of 40 Days for Life in Halifax